UN GENEVA PRESS BRIEFING

8 October 2024

War in Lebanon

Matthew Hollingworth, World Food Programme (WFP) Country Director in Lebanon, speaking from Beirut, said that Lebanon was facing extraordinary times. What had happened over the past weeks had been astonishing in terms of destruction and displacement. More than 1.2 million people were now affected by the crisis, with hundreds of thousands displaced, mostly from the south of Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut. Horrific cases of forced evacuations, sometimes only at a few hours’ notice, were way too numerous, said Mr. Hollingworth. There were currently 973 formal shelters in Beirut and the north, with over 200,000 people residing there; many of these shelters had reached full capacity. Displaced families had spoken of moving because they were extraordinarily fearful of what was yet to come. People in Lebanon had watched over a year how neighborhoods in Gaza had been decimated, which had also affected their decision to flee. WFP was managing to reach about 150,000 people per day with food rations; cash transfers were also being made daily, but as many as one million people might soon need help. There was an extraordinary concern of Lebanon being able to continue to feed itself, with large swathes of agricultural land in the south being bombed, damaged, and abandoned.

Moving forward, the WFP was building up to reach at least one million people, explained Mr. Hollingworth. For that to be possible, the current funding gap of USD 115 million would have to be filled. De-escalation was necessary. A diplomatic and political solution had to be found. Lebanon had already been very fragile, not least because of having hosted so many refugees. The country was tired, people were scared, and trauma was palpable. Prevention and de-escalation were absolutely needed now.

Ian Clarke, World Health Organization’s (WHO) Deputy Incident Manager, also connecting from Beirut, stated that the WHO was deeply concerned by the impact of the recent escalation of violence on the health system in Lebanon, including the rising number of attacks on health workers and facilities. Since 17 September, 16 attacks on health care had been recorded leaving behind 65 deaths and 40 injuries among health staff. Health facilities had been greatly impacted: 96 primary health care centres and health facilities had been forced to close in the south due to rising hostilities, five hospitals were reported non-functional due to physical or infrastructural damage, and an additional hospitals had been partially evacuated and requiring the transfer of patients, including critical dialysis and cancer patients, to other hospitals while maintaining emergency services, albeit with very limited capacity. As the number of displaced people increased and the population was left with limited access to emergency and trauma care, as well as access to essential health services, including routine vaccination and essential child and maternal health services, Lebanon was facing a situation where there was a much higher risk of disease outbreaks, such as acute watery diarrhea, hepatitis A, and a number of vaccine preventable diseases.

Lebanon’s health system had been impacted by years of economic and political instability, said Mr. Clarke. Over the past five years, Lebanon had suffered the departure of many its health workforce, limitations in essential health supplies, expensive out-of-pocket services, and lack of steady access to electricity impacting service delivery. All these challenges had deepened the risk of disease and poverty. WHO continued to support the Ministry of Public Health of Lebanon, working to conduct a rapid assessment of the IDPs access to health care to better mainstream essential services. The assessment was ongoing in parallel with the work to support the Epidemiological Surveillance Unit at the Ministry to expand and improve early warning surveillance capacities. Since the escalation of violence in September, the WHO had procured over 116 metric tons of supplies including surgical trauma supplies enough to perform 4,000 surgical interventions, and cholera and mental health medicines enough to treat around 100,000 patients. Mr. Clarke stressed that the only solution was de-escalation and peace.

Alessandra Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), quoted from the joint statement of UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro. In the statement, the two officials stressed that a negotiated solution was the only pathway to restore the security and stability that civilians on both sides so desperately wanted and deserved.

Replying to numerous questions from the media, Matthew Hollingworth, for the WFP, said that the Beirut airport was critical for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and movement of emergency medical teams in and out of the country. It was also vital that the ports and the land corridors remain open. Ian Clarke, for the WHO, spoke of the impact of the overnight bombing attacks on mental and physical health of people who had to endure it. People could no longer sleep at night because of the attacks. This would all have a longer-term impact on the affected populations.

Mr. Hollingworth also explained that the WFP aimed to be able to assist for up to one million people per day; right now, the WFP was helping some 150,000 per day. There were between two weeks and two and a half months of food stocks in Lebanon, depending on the commodity, said Mr. Hollingworth. The challenge was accessibility as more and more people found it difficult to afford the food they needed. Replying to another question, he said that a notification procedure with the IDF was already in place and a deconfliction process was being implemented to ensure that humanitarian actors’ mission and working premises were safe. Having witnessed numerous incidents in Gaza, the humanitarian actors in Lebanon wanted to make sure such deadly occurrences would be avoided in Lebanon. Lebanese people were afraid that their country could become another Gaza, which was why so many had left the southern regions and moved to Beirut and the north.

Mr. Hollingworth himself was worried that there was a risk of Lebanon entering the same spiral of doom witnessed in Gaza, where he had worked before. This should not be allowed to happen; it was up to diplomats and political leaders to prevent the worst outcome. While farming and food production in the rest of the country continued, large portions of the south were not usable, including citrus fruits, bananas, olive trees, and vegetables. In many cases, farmers would eventually return to the lands there were no longer farmable.

Also answering questions, Jeremy Laurence, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), stressed the three principles of international humanitarian law: distinction, proportionality, and military necessity. Civilians and civilian objects had to be spared. The situation in Lebanon was critical, and so was the situation in Gaza. The same patterns from Gaza were being now observed in Lebanon, having horrendous impact on civilians in Lebanon.

James Elder, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), noted that the language being used over “limited” attacks on Lebanon were reminiscent of that used in Gaza. The commonalities were unfortunately way too many, and it might be getting more challenging to disentangle the two conflicts. An estimated 400,000 children were currently in need of humanitarian aid in Lebanon, said Mr. Elder.

The Lebanon Flash Appeal was currently only 12.5 percent funded, informed Alessandra Vellucci of the UN Information Service.

Hurricane Milton

Clare Nullis, for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), stated that hurricane Milton posed an extremely serious threat to Florida, which was still reeling from hurricane Helene less than two weeks earlier. Milton would likely make landfall in Florida on 9 October. Maximum sustained winds were near 250 km/h with higher gusts, according to the latest update from the US National Hurricane Center. Milton was a powerful category 4 hurricane. Ms. Nullis explained that Milton had intensified at an explosive rate, an increasingly common occurrence. Ocean heat was playing a role here because warm sea surface temperatures provided the energy necessary for hurricanes to intensify. The deeper the warmer water, the more energy a storm could draw. Milton was also a large hurricane, with hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 45 km from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 130 km. It was expected to grow in size. A storm surge would raise water levels by as much as 1.2 – 1.8 meters above ground level along the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in areas of onshore winds.

Ms. Nullis further informed that there were currently three hurricanes spinning in the Atlantic – Milton, Leslie, and Kirk, which was exceptional for the month of October. Kirk was currently a category 1 hurricane but would weaken and become an ex-tropical cyclone as it hit Europe on 9 October. The major impacts was expected on France. Meteo-France was forecasting that Kirk will be a dangerous storm, with wind gusts up to 100 km/h and heavy rainfall, especially in the Loire region and Paris area.

WMO was working closely with the weather forecasting community, said Ms. Nullis responding to a question. She spoke of John Morales, a veteran meteorologist in the US, who had been brought to tears while reporting about hurricane Milton. Ms. Nullis warned that this abnormal situation was becoming the “new normal”. The problem with hurricane Helene was that people could not believe it would be as intense as it was, and had thus not heeded the warning from the authorities.

Human Rights Council

Pascal Sim, for the Human Rights Council (HRC), informed that this was the final week of the 57^th regular session of the Human Rights Council. This morning, the High Commissioner was providing an update on Ukraine, and this afternoon he would address the situation in Haiti. The Secretary-General’s report on Cambodia and an OHCHR report on Yemen would also be presented. Mr. Sim said that action on 37 draft resolutions would begin on 9 October and continue till 11 October. On 9-10 October, the UN General Assembly would elect 18 members of the Council to serve for three years starting in January 2025, for which they were 19 candidates. A simple majority of votes of 193 Member States, or at least 97 votes, were needed for a State to be elected.

Announcements

Speaking on behalf of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Alessandra Vellucci reminded of the upcoming World Trade Organization embargoed press conference on the "Global Trade Outlook and Statistics – October Update," on 10 October 2024 at 2 pm, under embargo until 3 pm that day. The conference can be attended in person in Room D at the WTO, or via Zoom.

Ms. Vellucci, for the UN Information Service, informed that the the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which had opened its 89^th session the previous day, was reviewing today the report of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

On 9 October, the international community would mark World Post Day, a special one this year as it coincided with the 150 years of the Universal Postal Union.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

- HRC - Pascal Sim: Human Rights Council update

- UNIS on behalf of WTO

TOPICS

- WFP - Matthew Hollingworth, WFP Country Director in Lebanon (From Beirut): WFP’s response in Lebanon

- WHO - Tarik Jašarević with Ian Clarke, Deputy Incident Manager for Lebanon (From Beirut): Update on the health situation in Lebanon

- WMO - Clare Nullis: Hurricane season activity intensifies with another major hurricane set for USA.